August & Shanahan (2006)

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners:

Report of the National Literacy Panel

on Language-Minority Children and Youth

Edited by

Diane AugustPrincipal Investigator

Timothy ShanahanPanel Chair

LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS2006 Mahwah, New Jersey London


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Contents

The contents of the entire volume, Developing Literacy inSecond-Language Learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel onLanguage-Minority Children and Youth, from which this Executive

Summary is adapted, are listed below.

Foreword

Preface

Introduction to the Volume

1 Introduction and MethodologyDiane August and Timothy Shanahan

2 Demographic OverviewDiane August

PART I: Development of Literacy in Second-Language Learners

3 Synthesis: Development of Literacy in Language-Minority Students

Nonie Lesaux and Esther Geva

4 Development of LiteracyNonie Lesaux with Keiko Koda, Linda S. Siegel, and Timothy Shanahan

5 Second-Language Oral Proficiency and Second-Language LiteracyEsther Geva

Part I References

PART II: Cross-Linguistic Relationships in Second-Language Learners

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6 Synthesis: Cross-Linguistic RelationshipsFred Genesee, Esther Geva, Cheryl Dressler, and Michael L. Kamil

7 Cross-Linguistic Relationships in Working Memory, PhonologicalProcesses, and Oral LanguageFred Genesee and Esther Geva

8 First-Language Oral Proficiency and Second-Language LiteracyEsther Geva and Fred Genesee

9 First-and Second-Language LiteracyCheryl Dressler with Michael L. Kamil

Part II References

PART III: Sociocultural Contexts and Literacy Development

10 Synthesis: Sociocultural Contexts and Literacy DevelopmentClaude Goldenberg, Robert S. Rueda, and Diane August

11 Social and Cultural Influences on the Literacy Attainmentof Language-Minority Children and YouthClaude Goldenberg, Robert S. Rueda, and Diane August

12 The Social and Cultural Context in which Children AcquireLiteracyRobert S. Rueda, Diane August, and Claude Goldenberg

Part III References

PART IV: Educating Language-Minority Students: InstructionalApproaches and Professional Development

13 Synthesis: Instruction and Professional DevelopmentDiane August and Timothy Shanahan

14 Language of InstructionDavid J. Francis, Nonie Lesaux, and Diane August

15 Effective Literacy Teaching for English-Language LearnersTimothy Shanahan and Isabel L. Beck

16 Qualitative Studies of Classroom and School PracticesDiane August with Frederick Erickson

17 Literacy Instruction for Language-Minority Children in SpecialEducation SettingsDiane August with Linda S. Siegel

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18 Teacher Beliefs and Professional DevelopmentDiane August and Margarita Caldern

Part IV References

PART V: Student Assessment

19 Synthesis: Language and Literacy AssessmentGeorgia Earnest Garca, Gail McKoon, and Diane August

20 Language and Literacy Assessment of Language-Minority StudentsGeorgia Earnest Garca and Gail McKoon

Part V References

21 Cross-Cutting Themes and Future Research DirectionsCatherine Snow

Biographical Sketches

CONTENTS v


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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Diane AugustPrincipal Investigator

Timothy ShanahanPanel Chair

Teaching language-minority students to read and write well in English is an urgent

challenge in the nations K12 schools. Literacy in English is essential to achieve-ment in every academic subjectand to educational and economic opportunitiesbeyond schooling.

Compounding this challenge are increasing numbers and diversity of lan-guage-minority students. These indicators illuminate the challenge:

A large and growing number of students come from homes where English isnot the primary language. In 1979, there were 6 million language-minority stu-dents; by 1999, this number had more than doubled to 14 million students. Some language-minority students are not faring well in U.S. schools. For the41 states reporting, only 18.7% of English-language learners scored above thestate-established norm for reading comprehension (Kindler, 2002). Whereas 10% of students who spoke English at home failed to complete highschool, the percentage was three times as high (31%) for language-minority stu-dents who spoke English and five times as high (51%) for language-minoritystu-dents who spoke English with difficulty (National Center for EducationStatistics, 2004).

Language-minority students who cannot read and write proficiently in Englishcannot participate fully in American schools, workplaces, or society. They face lim-ited job opportunities and earning power. Nor are the consequences of low literacy

attainment in English limited to individual impoverishment. U.S. economic com-petitiveness depends on workforce quality. Inadequate reading and writing profi-

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ciencyin English relegatesrapidly increasing language-minority populations to thesidelines, limiting the nations potential for economic competitiveness, innovation,productivity growth, and quality of life.

Theimportanceof this challengeledtheU.S. Department of Educations Institute

of Education Sciences to create the National Literacy Panel on Language-MinorityChildren and Youth.

Charge to the Panel

The formal charge to the panel was to identify, assess, and synthesize research onthe education of language-minority children and youth with regard to literacy at-tainment and to produce a comprehensive report on this literature.

Background on the Panel

Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners is the culmination of a 4-year processthatbeganinthespringof2002,whentheInstituteofEducationSciencesstaffselectedapanel of 13 experts in second-language development, cognitive development, curricu-lum and instruction, assessment, and methodology to review the quantitative andqualitative research on the development of literacy in language-minority students.

This national panel identified five research topics to investigate:

Development of literacy. Cross-linguistic relationships. Sociocultural contexts and literacy development.

Instruction and professional development. Student assessment.

The panel formulated a series of research questions to guide the investigation ofeach topic. To address these questions, the panel formed five subcommittees, onedevoted to each topic. The panel held five panel meetings and several subcommit-tee meetings, collaborating to outline, discuss, and review the substantive issuesand relevant literature. The panel also heldseveral openmeetings togain public ad-vice and input from educators, community members, and researchers.

The report has undergone two rounds of external review by anonymous review-

ers selected by the U.S. Department of Education, and substantial revisions in re-sponse to these reviews.

Funding for theproject was provided to SRI International and theCenter for Ap-plied Linguistics by the Institute of Education Sciences and the Office of EnglishLanguage Acquisition. Funding also was provided by the National Institute ofChild Health and Human Development through funds transferred to the U.S. De-partment of Education.

The Panels Approach to the Research

Thepanel established strict criteria for identifying appropriate, relevant researchofsufficient quality to allow the research questions to be answered soundly. Two ofthese criteria merit discussion here:

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First, to ensure a rigorous research review, the panel required evidence from par-ticular types of studies to answer particular types of questions. The issue here is ap-propriateness. For example, when the panel tried to determine whether particularapproaches to instruction conferred advantages to language-minority students, the

panel required experimental or quasi-experimental data. Other kinds of studieswereusedtoanswerotherquestionsthatdidnotrequirethiskindofcausallinkage. Second, to ensure the most relevance to policies and practices in U.S. schools,the panel focused on studies of second-language acquisition in which the targetsecond language is English and the students are language-minority. However,the panel included studies of other target languages as well, if these studiescould shed light on the challenges that students face in U.S. schools.

Afinal important pointand, perhaps, a key finding in its own rightis that theresearch on acquiring literacy in a second language remains limited. While the key

findings summarized herein are supported by research evidence, the research onsome topics is scant.Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners will be of particular value to re-

searchers interested in the development of literacy in language-minority students.Sections will be relevant to researchers studying literacy more generally, as well asto practitioners concerned about improving the education of language-minoritystudents.

Major Findings of the Panel

Instruction that provides substantial coverage in the key components of read-

ingidentified by the National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000) as phonemicawareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehensionhas clearbenefits for language-minority students.

Focusing on these key components of reading has a positive influence on the lit-eracy development of language-minority students, just as it does for native Englishspeakers. Likewise, writing instruction has clear benefits for language-minoritystudents, as it does for native English speakers.

Enhancedteaching of thekeycomponents of English literacy providesa clear ad-vantage to English-language learners. In addition more complex, innovative pro-grams typically taught several of these components simultaneouslyand these

efforts were usually successful in improving literacy for language-minority stu-dents. However, while approaches that are similar to those used with native-lan-guage populations are effective, the research suggests that adjustments to theseapproaches areneededtohave maximum benefit with language-minority students.For example, young Spanish-speaking students learning to read in English mightmake the best progress when given more work with particular phonemes and com-binations of phonemes in English that do not exist in their home language.

Becoming literate in a second language depends on the quality of teaching,whichis a function of thecontent coverage, intensity or thoroughness of instruction,methods used to support the special language needs of second-language learnersand to build on their strengths, how well learning is monitored, and teacher prepa-ration. Teachers can learn how to deliver innovative instruction with effective pro-fessional development. Teachers found professional development to be most

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helpful when it provided opportunities for hands-on practice with teaching tech-niques readily applicable in their classrooms, in-class demonstrations with theirown or a colleagues students, or personalized coaching, a finding that is consistentwith previous research. Collaboration with special education teachers andresource

specialists also improves the quality of instruction. In all the studies reviewed, out-side collaborators with expertise (university researchers) assisted in professionaldevelopment, suggesting that outside change agents can help teachers improvetheir classroom practices.

Instruction in the key components of reading is necessarybut not suffi-cientfor teaching language-minority students to read and write proficiently inEnglish. Oral proficiency in English is critical as wellbut student performancesuggests that it is often overlooked in instruction.

An important finding that emerges from the research is that word-level skills inliteracysuch as decoding, word recognition and spellingare often taught well

enough to allow language-minority students to attain levels of performance equalto those of native English speakers. However, this is not the case for text-levelskillsreading comprehension and writing. Language-minority students rarelyapproach the same levels of proficiency in text-level skills achieved by native Eng-lish speakers.

The research suggests that the reason for the disparity between word- andtext-level skills among language-minority students is oral English proficiency. Oralproficiency in English is not a strong predictor of English word-level skills, al-though it is likely to correlate to some extent with the underlying cognitive skills(letter-sound awareness, rapid naming of words, and phonological memory) thatdo predict word identification skills in both language-minority students and native

English speakers.By contrast, well-developed oral proficiency in English is associated with Eng-

lish reading comprehension and writing skills for these students. Specifically, Eng-lish vocabulary knowledge, listening comprehension, syntactic skills, and theability to handle metalinguistic aspects of language, such as providing definitionsof words, are linked to English reading and writing proficiency.

These findings help explain why many language-minority students can keeppace with their native English-speaking peers when the instructional focus is onword-level skills, but lag behind when the instructional focus turns to reading com-prehension and writing.

Instructional approaches found to be successful with native English speakers donot have as positive a learning impact on language-minority students. It is notenough to teach language-minority students reading skills alone. Extensive oralEnglish development must be incorporatedintosuccessful literacy instruction. Themost promisinginstructional practicesforlanguage-minority students bear outthispoint: Literacy programs that provide instructional support of oral language devel-opment in English, aligned with high-quality literacy instruction are the mostsuccessful.

The patterns of learning across these studies suggest that the basic sequencing ofteaching is likely to be the same for language-minority students and native Englishspeakerswith greater attention to word-level skills early in the process and moredirectandambitious attentionto reading comprehension later on. However, vocab-ulary and background knowledge, should be targeted intensively throughout the

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entire sequence. The need to develop stronger English-language proficiency to be-come literate in English argues for an early, ongoing, and intensiveeffort to developthis oral proficiency.

Oral proficiency andliteracy inthefirst language canbeused tofacilitate liter-

acy development in English.Language-minority students are not blank slates. They enter classrooms with

varying degrees of oral proficiency and literacy in their first language. There is clearevidence that tapping into first-language literacy can confer advantages to Eng-lish-language learners. For example, there is evidence that language-minority stu-dents are able to take advantage of higher order vocabulary skills in the firstlanguage, such as the ability to provide formal definitions and interpret metaphors,when speaking a second language. Studies also indicate that students are able to takeadvantage of cognate relationships between their first language and English to un-derstand English words, an important precursor to comprehension. There is limited

evidence as well that cognate knowledge is associated with thedevelopment of read-ing comprehension in English. Cognates are words that have similar spellings andmeanings in two languages, such as continue in English and continuar in Span-ish.

First-language oral proficiency also influences developmental patterns in sec-ond-language speech discrimination, speech production, intraword segmentation,and vocabulary, which reflect the patterns of the first languageat least until stu-dents become more proficient in English.

There is ample evidence as well that first-language literacy is related in other im-portant ways to literacy development in English, including word and pseudowordreading, reading comprehension, reading strategies, spelling, and writing. Lan-

guage-minority students who are literate in their first language are likely to be ad-vantaged in the acquisition of English literacy. It is important to take intoconsideration the transferability of some literacy skills, then, when planning andproviding second-language literacy instruction to students who are literate in theirfirst language.

Moreover, the research indicates that instructional programs work when theyprovide opportunities for students to develop proficiency in their first language.Studies that compare bilingual instruction with English-only instruction demon-stratethat language-minority students instructed in their nativelanguage as well asin English perform better, on average, on measures of English reading proficiency

than language-minority students instructed only in English. This is the case at boththe elementary and secondary levels.

Individualdifferencescontributesignificantly toEnglishliteracy development.Research shows that the development of English literacy entails cumulative, hier-

archical processes for all language-minoritystudents. Certain components of literacycannot fully develop until students acquire other, precursor skills.Forstudentsto de-velopefficient wordrecognition skills, for example, they must first have good decod-ing and orthographic, or spelling, skills. Without fast and accurate word recognitionskills, they cannot achieve satisfactory levels of reading comprehension.

However, English literacy development is a dynamic process and is influencedby individual differences in general language proficiency, age, English oral profi-ciency, cognitiveabilities,previouslearning, andthesimilaritiesanddifferences be-tween the first language and English. For example, adolescent language-minority

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students schooled only in their first language mayhave well-developed phonologi-cal skills in both languages, but a similar level of development would not be aslikely for 6-year-olds, who are cognitively less advanced in this regard. Similarly,older language-minority students are more likely than primary-level learners to

notice cognates common to Spanish and English.Reading difficulties among language-minority students may be more a function

of individual differences than of language-minority status. Similar proportions oflanguage-minority students and monolingual English speakers are classified aspoor readers. In fact, with theexception of English oral-language skills, the profilesof poor readers in the two groups are very similar. Both groups demonstrate diffi-culties with phonological awareness and working memory. These findings suggestthat underlying processing deficits, as opposed to language-minority status, aretheprimary issue for students experiencing word-level difficulties.

Interestingly, in studies of middle school students with reading difficulties, the

language-minority students had better scores on phonological measures than theirnative English-speaking peers. This finding should be further investigated, since itdiffers from the findings on younger learners.

Finally, researchers have questioned the view that learning abilities and disabili-ties are inherent, rather than the result of the situational context. In fact, studies re-veal that, given proper instruction, some language-minority students classified aslearning disabled can achieve grade-level norms.

Furthermore, there is evidence of promising practices for language-minoritystudents in special education settings. Behavioral approaches to developing sightword reading andvocabulary, cognitiveor learning strategy approaches, andholis-tic, interactive approaches that encourage thoughtful discussion of ideasall

approaches grounded in very different theoretical modelsare some examples.However, the small sample sizes and lack of controls in studies of these approachesdemand more research to explore their effectiveness.

Most assessmentsdoa poor jobofgauging individualstrengthsandweaknesses.The research on the development of English literacy strongly suggests that ade-

quate assessments are essential for gauging the individual strengths and weak-nesses of language-minority students, making placement decisions, and tailoringinstruction to meet student needs. Unfortunately, existing assessments are inade-quate to the need in most respects. For example, most measures do not predict howwell language-minority students will perform over time on reading or content-area

assessments in English.Forpredictive purposes,several researchers found that letternamingandtests of

phonological awareness in English were good predictors of performance in Englishreading. Because the researchers did not control for students oral English profi-ciency or examine their first-language literacy performance on the same measures,however, the findings must be qualified. Although several researchers used crite-rion measures to identify lowperformers or students with reading difficulties, find-ings that some low-performing students substantially improved their readingperformance with instruction suggest that additional longitudinal studies areneeded to test the predictors against students actual reading performance.

For placement purposes, there is limited evidence about the effectiveness ofteacher judgment in identifying language-minority students who need intensivereading instruction or who might be in danger of dropping out of school. The find-

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ings suggest, however, that teacher judgment might be more reliable when teacherscan respond thoughtfully to specific criteria rather than express their opinionsspontaneously. Because teacher judgment and assessment play a significant role inthe education of language-minority students, additional research needs to explore

this assessment tool further.Almost all of the researchers who examined the eligibility of language-minority

students for special education, language disorders, or learning disabilities servicesrecommend assessing students in both their first language and English. Very littleresearch has focused on identifying older language-minority students with learn-ing disabilitiesanother important issue for future study.

There is surprisingly little evidence for the impact of sociocultural variableson literacy achievement or development. However, home language experiencescan have a positive impact on literacy achievement.

The panel investigated the effects of six sociocultural factors on literacy achieve-

ment and development: immigration status; discourse/interactional characteris-tics; other sociocultural factors; parents and family influences; district, state, andfederal policies; and language status or prestige. With some exceptions, there is lit-tle evidence for gauging the impact of most of these factors. However, this does notmean that these factors have no impact. Rather, this finding reflects a shortcomingin the research, with studies tending to be descriptive rather than documenting em-pirical links between sociocultural factorsandstudent outcomes,broadly defined.

The research does suggest that bridging homeschool differences in interactionpatterns or styles canenhance studentsengagement, motivation, andparticipationin classroom instruction. This finding is not trivial, but it is still important to deter-mine if bridging homeschool differences consequently improves literacy

achievement or development.The research also suggests that students perform better when they read or use

material that is in the language they know better. Culturally meaningful or familiarreading material also appears to facilitate comprehension, but this is a relativelyweak predictorof reading comprehension compared to thelanguage of thematerialand students proficiency in that language.

Overall, student performance in literacy is more likely to be the result of home(and school) language and literacy learning opportunities. The research supportsthree findings about the role of home language for English-language learners liter-acy achievement in English:

First, language-minority parents express willingnessand often have theabilityto help their children succeed academically. For various reasons, how-ever, schools underestimate and underutilize parents interest, motivation, andpotential contributions. Second, more home literacy experiencesandopportunitiesareassociated withsuperior literacy outcomes, although findings in this regardare inconsistent andprecise conclusions are difficult to find. Measures of parent and family literacyoften predict childrens literacy attainment, but two studies found that parentsreading behavior is unrelated to childrens literacy outcomes. Features of familylife, such as domestic workload and religious activities, appear to influence thevalue children place on reading and their concepts of themselves as readers. Par-ent education is associated with childrens literacy outcomes as well.

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Third,therelationshipbetween home languageuseandliteracy achievementinEnglishisunclear. Ingeneral,homeexperienceswiththe first and secondlan-guagesarepositively(but modestly)correlatedwithliteracyachievement inthefirst and second languages, but negatively (and also modestly) correlated with

literacyachievement in thesecondlanguage.Four studies counteredthisgener-alization, however. Asa result, there is insufficientevidence to make policy andpractice recommendations about home language use.

Conclusion

TheNational Literacy Panel on Language-MinorityChildren andYouth systematicallyand rigorously examined the research on acquiring literacy in a second language.Through this process, the panel learned what is knownand what is not yetknownabout the complex process oflearningtoreadand write ina secondlanguage.

Policymakersandeducatorscanusethepanels findings tobenchmarktheir ownpractices and infuse research-based instruction into literacy programs for lan-guage-minority students. Researchers can enrich this knowledge base by focusingon the specific gaps in our knowledge, which in the future will enable U.S. schoolsto better educate English-language learners in English literacy.

References

Kindler, A. L. (2002). Survey of the states limited English proficient students and available educa-tional programs and services: 20002001 summary report. Washington, DC: National Clear-

inghouse for English Language Acquisition.NationalCenter forEducationStatistics.(2004).Theconditionof education, 2004. RetrievedJuly16, 2004, from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). (2000). Report of theNational Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientificresearch literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction (NIH Publication No.00-4769). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The Executive Summary is made available with permission from Lawrence ErlbaumAssociates, Inc., publishers of D. August & T. Shanahan, Eds. (in press). DevelopingLiteracy in Second-Language Learners: A Report of the National Literacy Panel on Lan-

guage-Minority Children and Youth_(0-8058-6077-0, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence ErlbaumAssociates, Inc.).

For ordering information see http://www.erlbaum.com/august.

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NATIONAL LITERACY PANEL ON LANGUAGE-MINORITYCHILDREN AND YOUTH

Members of the National Literacy Panel

Diane August, Principal Investigator Timothy Shanahan, Chair

Center for Applied Linguistics University of Illinois, Chicago

Isabel Beck Claude Goldenberg

University of Pittsburgh California State University, Long Beach

Margarita Caldern Michael Kamil

Johns Hopkins University Stanford University

David J. Francis Keiko Koda

University of Houston Carnegie Mellon University

Georgia Earnest Garca Gail McKoon

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Ohio State University

Esther Geva Robert S. Rueda

University of Toronto University of Southern California

Fred Genesee Linda Siegel

McGill University University of British Columbia

Panel Methodologists

Frederick Erickson David Francis

University of California, Los Angeles University of Houston

Senior Advisors to the Panel

Donna Christian Catherine Snow

Center for Applied Linguistics Harvard University

Senior Research Associates

Cheryl Dressler Nonie Lesaux

Center for Applied Linguistics Harvard University

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 9

August & Shanahan (2006)

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